Post-impressionism
(gcide) | Post-impressionism \Post`-im*pres"sion*ism\, n. (Painting)
In the broadest sense, the theory or practice of any of
several groups of painters of the early 1900's, or of these
groups taken collectively, whose work and theories have in
common a tendency to reaction against the scientific and
naturalistic character of impressionism and
neo-impressionism. In a strict sense the term
post-impressionism is used to denote the effort at
self-expression, rather than representation, shown in the
work of C['e]zanne, Matisse, etc.; but it is more broadly
used to include cubism, the theory or practice of a movement
in both painting and sculpture which lays stress upon volume
as the important attribute of objects and attempts its
expression by the use of geometrical figures or solids only;
and futurism, a theory or practice which attempts to place
the observer within the picture and to represent
simultaneously a number of consecutive movements and
impressions. In practice these theories and methods of the
post-impressionists change with great rapidity and shade into
one another, so that a picture may be both cubist and
futurist in character. They tend to, and sometimes reach, a
condition in which both representation and traditional
decoration are entirely abolished and a work of art becomes a
purely subjective expression in an arbitrary and personal
language.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.] |